VI 



THE SCARLET TANAGEB 



WHEN I began to learn the birds, I was living 

 in a large city. One of the first things I did, 

 after buying a book, was to visit a cabinet of 

 mounted specimens "stuffed birds," as we 

 often call them. Such a wonderful and confus- 

 ing variety as there was to my ignorant eyes ! 

 Among them I remarked especially a gorgeous 

 scarlet creature with black wings and a black tail. 

 It was labeled the scarlet tanager. So far as I 

 was concerned, it could not have looked more 

 foreign if it had come from Borneo. My book 

 told me that it was common in Massachusetts. It 

 might be, I thought, but I had never seen it 

 there. And a bird so splendid as that ! Bright 

 enough to set the woods on fire ! How could I 

 have missed it ? 



Well, there came a Saturday, with its half- 

 holiday for clerks, and I went into the country, 

 where I betook myself to the woods of my native 

 village, the woods wherein I had rambled all the 

 years of my boyhood. And that afternoon, be- 



